Asia at the forefront of library innovation

Bookworms visiting the Beijing Library in China are invited to wander through 16-metre-tall stair terraces which mimic the course of the Tonghui river just beyond the library doors. These terraced hills – where readers can relax – are marked by ceiling panels that mimic Chinese gingko leaves.

This nature-infused design, coupled with the library’s use of technology to reduce carbon emissions, helped the Beijing Library win 2024’s Public Library of the Year Award, awarded by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA).

IFLA is an international non-profit that brings together over 150 countries to advance the interests of library services and associations and represent the voices of library communities to international bodies, including the United Nations.

This is just the latest example of how libraries in Asia have been at the forefront of global library innovation, shares IFLA’s Chair of the Regional Division Committee for Asia-Oceania, Soh Lin Li, who is also Director for Partnership at Singapore’s National Library Board (NLB).

In the early 2000s, Singapore’s NLB was the first in the world to implement a radio-frequency identification (RFID) system to track books, Soh recalls. This allowed NLB to automate borrowing, returning, sorting, and stocktaking. As librarians no longer had to scan barcodes, the public could return books at any time around the clock, a practice that soon went global.

“Singapore has always been the thought leader when it comes to libraries, and they would come to us for innovation. It was Singapore, and it was Asia, that brought the RFID system worldwide,” she shares.

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Where Asia excels

Today, Asian libraries have excelled at driving innovation when it comes to digital transformation, sustainability, and the provision of novel community-centric services, Soh says.

In Indonesia, a network of library volunteers, called the Mobile Library, distributes free books to places without any public libraries – via boats, motorbikes, horseback, and even on foot. This is one example of how libraries in Asia have innovated when it comes to outreach efforts, shares Soh.

Last year, the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) worked with a French publishing house to introduce a short story dispenser that can print English, Chinese, and CUHK works to promote reading and writing on campus.

As Chair for the Asia-Oceania regional division at IFLA, Soh works to ensure that Asian voices are represented in the non-profit’s professional divisions, which explore emerging trends within libraries, such as sustainability, digital transformation, and serving people with disabilities.

Through IFLA, libraries work together to set common standards, such as for book digitisation and preservation, train librarians in common capabilities, and ensure that they can work with international bodies on topics such as information integrity, Soh shares.

Balancing GenAI hype with traditional library focus areas

Singapore’s NLB has been at the forefront of experimenting with generative AI (GenAI) tools to create new library experiences and services for readers, shares Soh.

Some of these new offerings include ChatBook, a GenAI-powered prototype which allows users to “talk” with a biography of one of Singapore’s founding fathers, S. Rajaratnam; and StoryGen, a multimodal GenAI tool through which users can put their own spin on classic stories.

“If you have GenAI, it can enhance their [reading] experiences and it’s more impressive, so you will remember it more,” says Soh. These tools also help to educate the public about emerging technologies and raise digital literacy, she explains.

What about concerns that GenAI tools will reduce critical reading and thinking skills, as readers become more reliant on “AI assistants”?

This is why Singapore’s NLB runs digital literacy workshops, programmes, and services, such as the S.U.R.E. campaign, which stands for “Source, Understand, Research, Evaluate,” she shares. Late last year, NLB ran an S.U.R.E. workshop targeting the issue of deepfakes and GenAI.

“AI can only help you in certain ways and get you interested. You have to read further. This is why the library has to balance innovation with tradition,” she says. It is also critical for libraries to partner with authors to manage copyright concerns sensitively, she adds.

Beyond GenAI, libraries in Asia and Oceania, such as in Australia, Japan and Shanghai, are increasingly using AI to support cataloguing and resources management, as well as advanced search and discovery.

What’s next for libraries

The Covid-19 pandemic pushed libraries to digitalise further, with expanded digital and e-book resources, as well as supporting the public in upgrading their digital skills and digital literacy, Soh notes.

In 2024, IFLA submitted a response representing the perspectives of libraries to UN consultations on Information Integrity, prior to the UN’s release of the UN’s Global Principles for Information Integrity in the wake of rising misinformation.

From 2024 to 2029, IFLA will focus on further connecting libraries through global professional communities, ensuring that libraries are viewed as valued partners, and that libraries are able to deliver meaningful change, according to the organisation’s five- year strategy plan.

Soh shares that as libraries are increasingly facing budget and manpower cuts around the world, the partnerships enabled by IFLA are critical to supporting capacity-building efforts for the next generation of librarians.

Likewise, Singapore’s NLB has released LAB25, a five-year roadmap which details NLB’s plans to increase its outreach efforts beyond physical libraries, support lifelong learning and digital literacy, and inspire local storytellers.

Also read: Unlocking knowledge: How Civica enhances Singapore’s school libraries